AMS-10027
Year/Semester:
Core module for:
Programme Elective for:
Free Standing Elective:
Module Co-ordinator:
2015-2016, Semester 2
English & American Literatures
American Studies Dual Honours, American Studies Minor, American Studies
Single Honours, English Dual Honours, English Single Honours, English
Minor
Yes
Tim Lustig (CBB1.049, Tel: 01782 733011, t.j.lustig@keele.ac.uk)
Module Description
Transatlantic Gothic is an exciting and innovative module which introduces you to one of the
most important of nineteenth-century literary genres, both in England and the United States.
You study the prominent texts of this period both individually and comparatively, and are
given training in key critical and theoretical concepts (for example, psychoanalytical and
Marxist approaches to Gothic literature). The module is designed to develop intermediate
writing and research skills; a formative assessment and individual feedback is also provided.
The course combines a variety of traditional learning activities (lectures and seminars) with
small group work carried out in workshops. A balance of shorter and longer reading
assignments makes the workload manageable.
Module Assessment
KLE quiz (formative), Analysis of a key term (formative), Short Paper (close reading exercise,
30%), Essay (60%), Class Participation (10%)
Study Programme
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Introductory Meeting
Seminar: Horace Walpole, The
Castle of Otranto (1764)
Lecture: The Gothic and Theory
Seminar: Charles Brockden
Brown, Wieland (1798)
Workshop on Key Critical Terms
Seminar: Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein (1818)
Lecture: Romanticism and the
Gothic
Seminar: Edgar Allan Poe, The
Narrative of Arthur Gordon
Pym (1838)
Workshop on the Research and
Writing Process
Reading and Consultation
Reading and Consultation
Seminar: Charlotte Brontë, Jane
Eyre (1847)
Lecture: Gothic and the Atlantic
World
9.
10.
Seminar: Henry James, ‘The
Turn of the Screw’ (1898)
Lecture: Intertextuality and the
Fantastic
Seminar: Bram Stoker, Dracula
(1897)
Lecture: Blood Counts: Dracula and
Otherness
Buy World’s Classics editions of The Castle of
Otranto, Wieland, Frankenstein (make sure you get
the 1818 text), The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,
Jane Eyre and The Turn of the Screw. A decent
edition of Dracula is published by Penguin (ed.
Hindle) but if you want to write about Stoker you are
advised to buy either the Broadview edition (ed.
Byron) or the Norton edition (ed. Auerbach and
Skal), both of which contain richer editorial and
scholarly material.